Irish trainer Willie Mullins will seek an elusive first
Melbourne Cup victory in Australia's most famous race on Tuesday.
Mullins, the only man to train 100 winners at jump racing's
Cheltenham Festival, has targeted the Flat contest (04:00 GMT) as a key event
he wants to win.
He hopes last year's favourite Vauban, who finished 14th,
can fare better this time, with Mullins also running Absurde, who took seventh
place 12 months ago.
Onesmoothoperator represents Brian Ellison, with Sea King
running for fellow British trainer Harry Eustace at Flemington Racecourse.
Caulfield Cup runner-up Buckaroo is among the leading
Australia-based hopes in the 'race that stops a nation'. Trainer Chris Waller,
who was born in New Zealand, also saddles Kovalica, Land Legend, Valiant King
and Manzoice.
Vauban won the Lonsdale Cup at York before finishing
runner-up to Kyprios in the Irish St Leger last time, while Absurde landed the
Chester Stakes having won the County Hurdle at Cheltenham in March.
Mullins would dearly love to scoop a Melbourne Cup.
"It's probably the biggest flat race in the world that
I can win with the type of horses we buy," said Mullins, 68, who was
second with Max Dynamite in 2015.
"That's why it's a race that we'd really love to
win."
There have been four Irish-trained winners of the Melbourne
Cup - Vintage Crop (1993), Media Puzzle (2002), Rekindling (2017) and Twilight
Payment (2020).
Mullins' compatriot Aidan O'Brien misses out on the chance
to win the race for the first time after his contender Jan Brueghel
failed a veterinary check , externallast week. Stricter tests on
overseas runners, aimed at improving the race's safety record, were introduced
in 2021.
Ellison and Eustace are bidding to become only the second
British trainer to win the two-mile contest, after Charlie Appleby with Cross
Counter six years ago.
Onesmoothoperator won the Northumberland Plate earlier in
the year and took the Geelong Cup in Australia on 23 October.
British jockey Hollie Doyle takes the ride on Bendigo Cup
winner Sea King as she looks to become only the second female rider to win,
after Australian Michelle Payne's victory on Prince Of Penzance in 2015.
Doyle is among a record number of four women riding in this
year's race, alongside Jamie Kah (Okita Soushi), Rachel King (The Map) and
Winona Costin (Positivity).
"I think it's the most important thing," said
Waller. "We're all equal on a racetrack and that's what makes racing so
unique."
